Minor spoilers for Bridgerton season 3 below.
Dearest gentle readers, it’s time to return to the ‘ton for the latest social season. But while season 3 of Bridgerton will focus on Penelope Featherington’s secret crush on her best friend Colin Bridgerton and her quest for a husband, the scene stealer this (and every) season is Golda Rosheuvel’s Queen Charlotte. Stern, intimidating, and often bored by the pomp and circumstance of a woman’s debut, Charlotte is ultimately responsible for making or breaking the social standing of just about everyone in society.
Charlotte has been a fan-favorite since the Netflix series debuted in 2020, even earning a spin-off miniseries last year that illuminated her youth and backstory. For that prequel, India Amarteifio stepped into the Queen’s shoes with little oversight from Rosheuvel. “I don’t own her,” Rosheuvel tells ELLE.com about allowing Amarteifio to define the character for herself. “India needed to bring her own experiences to it and what I did was support her in that.” The final product has since informed Rosheuvel’s portrayal of Charlotte in the forthcoming third season of Bridgerton, which airs the first half of its season on May 16 and promises to dig deeper into the sisterhood between her and Lady Danbury as well as the long-standing friendship with her right-hand man Brimsley.
The third season of Bridgerton finds the Queen once again searching for the Diamond of this year’s debutantes—a feat that proves more difficult than usual. That is, until she finds Francesca Bridgerton, whose insistence in forging her own path and focusing on her own happiness reminds the Queen of her own headstrong instincts.
Over coffee in L.A., Rosheuvel opened up about the audition process, what she believes the Queen is looking for in each season’s Diamond, and what it’s really like to wear those heavy wigs.
When the show first premiered, there was a lot of talk about the diverse casting and how Black characters populated the series—especially in higher positions, like Queen Charlotte, who is biracial like you. How did you feel when you first auditioned and learned that Shonda Rhimes and her team were constructing the show in this way?
I don’t think that was something that I thought about—as an actress, you want to work. It kind of feels weird saying that four years down the line and with everything that the show represents in the positivity, representation, inclusion, and diversity. But at the beginning, it wasn’t like that. I was an actress who got an audition. I originally auditioned for Lady Danbury and didn’t get that. Then I got Charlotte. It was about working. It was about knowing Shonda’s work and having real respect for that.
When I take on a character, most of the time I find something that I can hold onto whether that be music, art, dance, or a TV show. When I played Othello, Scandal was that show that I linked to the character. That was 2-3 years before I got Charlotte, so I had already been immersed in her genius of writing characters that really reach out of the screen. Also, Queen Charlotte is a very easy role to understand because she is my mother. That essence of Englishness and etiquette and wicked sense of humor…it’s my mother.
Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte in season 3.
I read that you forgot your lines in your first Bridgerton audition. What was it about this audition that unnerved you so much?
Oh it was terrible! It’s because I’m dyslexic. There is a barrier for me sometimes when the time is not enough for the amount of work that I am given. I’m a perfectionist. When it comes to language and knowing what I’m saying, I want to be natural. When I’m talking to you now it’s just a natural flow, and I demand that of myself to do the storytelling that I want. So if I don’t have that time it can be very frustrating because I feel like I’m only half or three-quarters done. That’s what happened to me—I didn’t have that last bit completed and it’s about not being able to create the whole character.
Having said that, I only had a few hours to audition for Charlotte and that was a different ball game altogether. I knew her instantly. I knew the woman; The woman was my mother. I knew her in my gut and we did [the audition] in 45 minutes to an hour, and that was it. It just sat so easily in my body and in my thought process—the words were there. Sometimes that happens and that’s the joy.
In the second episode of the new season, the Queen witnesses Francesca Bridgerton playing piano and is immediately enamored. What is it about her presence or her talent that draws the Queen to her?
I think season 3 is a really interesting one for a lot of the characters because you find them in a place where they’re a little wobbly and unnerved and searching for something else. The Queen is fidgety, wondering now what? When she finds Francesca, there’s that intrigue of, “Oh, you’re creating a world for yourself. You don’t need anyone else. That’s interesting.” That’s empowering and I think that’s the ignition that the Queen needs to continue on to what she gets up to this season. I loved doing that scene because it felt new and different to everything else that we’ve seen mapped out in seasons 1 and 2. We have a new showrunner [Jess Brownell] this season, and she injected her desire to see these characters and storylines and worlds a little bit differently.
I read that moment as a personality trait coming to the surface—that Queen Charlotte isn’t looking for the pomp and circumstance or who can bow the lowest. She doesn’t really buy into the performance of the season’s announcements; she seems to want something more from the people of the ton.
Exactly. It’s all been done, it’s like, “Ugh, this is so boring. Why isn’t anybody trying to do something else?” I also think she feels like there’s something about herself in [Francesca]. If you think about Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, does she see a bit of Francesca in herself? Does she want a bit of that for herself—living life on her own terms rather than having 15 children and a husband that’s going mad? She might want to escape that and be alone in a room playing piano on her own time.
Throughout Bridgerton, we’ve seen that Queen Charlotte is really picky in her search for the season’s diamond. In your words, what is she looking for during each season?
Someone to inspire her. I think Charlotte’s very passionate about moving forward and the future—not only the future of the monarchy, but of the community. How do you form a solid community in high society? I think it’s really interesting what you said about the pomp and ceremony and who curtsies the lowest—all of that is so surface-based and she strives for something deeper and more authentic. That’s the whole point of the Diamond. There are interesting layers to that because of course she loves the pomp and ceremony, but the human side of it is what she’s searching deeply for.
In some press that you’ve done for the new season, it sounds like the relationship between Queen Charlotte and Lady Danbury as adults will be explored more.
Coming from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, there’s this wonderful “secret” that we have had about the characters and the light has now been shone on it. It’s all about the sisterhood and things happen within that sisterhood—there are ups and downs and curveballs. As I was saying, these characters are a little bit wobbly this season and you’ll get to see the human side of them.
Was that “secret” laid out from season 1?
I’ve been calling it the secret because as an actor, when you first get a script you find who they are. At the beginning, I created Charlotte’s fifteen children. They were there in the darkness of my imagination. That’s the secret that I had. You never saw it on screen; it was a layer that I had to give me some sort of roundedness. And now that secret has been let out and now I know what my children look like. Similarly, the gates have been opened on the relationships between Danbury and Charlotte and Violet Bridgerton.
Left to right: Hugh Sachs as Brimsley, Golda Rosheuvel as Queen Charlotte, Adjoa Andoh as Lady Agatha Danbury.
There’s an intimacy that you’ve created with the character that will now be seen.
Exactly.
Will we get to see more of Charlotte’s family and children? Or Brimsley?
I don’t think [we’ll see more of her family] in this season. But how joyous is her relationship with Brimsley! Hugh Sacks who plays Brimsley is my dearest best friend in the whole world—even when we’re not filming, I see him like three times a week. We have talked about the two of them from day one. He is the silent partner in Bridgerton. Our thoughts and eye contact and breathing together has been huge for our relationship. Now, to give him that voice and have him speak…both of us cried when we did the scene in Queen Charlotte. It was something we had desperately wanted for two years and I hope we see more of it.
The miniseries really humanizes your character, who is presented in Bridgerton as a bit of an untouchable presence—with so much power, everyone cowers when you’re in the room. What aspects of that backstory did you bring to your performance on this season?
We actually filmed this season of Bridgerton at the same time as the miniseries.
That kind of complicates the question!
Yes, it was complicated. But it was really interesting because I would go out of a room in Bridgerton into a scene with my children or George, and it was a lived life. It was a whole life that was ignited by information. It was a roller coaster but it was satisfying and everything kind of made sense. You do, by osmosis, bring things and take things from the two shows.
Before the miniseries, if I was sitting on the throne and there was a ball and I was supposed to be bored, I would think about George because then I’m in action. What would he think of this ball? He’d be so bored, oh my god, he’d probably take his clothes off, he’d probably run around naked, thank god he’s not here. To be playing the two things at the same time was great. The kids were a big thing to visualize and then physically have in the room. That technically was taken from Queen Charlotte into Bridgerton. It has to be.
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You’ve said you channel India Arie’s music when playing Queen Charlotte. Why?
When I read the script and was first getting into character, I’d go for walks and listen to music. I create playlists and add anything that popped emotionally. In learning Queen Charlotte, I wanted to find something that helped me learn my lines. The physicalness and swag of the Worthy album, I wanted her to have that attitude.
From a costuming perspective, the Queen’s hair is always extremely elaborate. You have to wear neck braces while filming—what is that like?
It’s tough. Those things are heavy, man! I was really lucky to be in collaboration with the artists this season because those are works of art.
What goes into creating a wig?
Weight is the first thing they consider, because the weight has to be specifically spaced on the head, and what it’s made out of contributes to that. Then they think about what story are we trying to tell—what’s the scene, where are we shooting, what’s the clothing? There is one wig in season 3 that was planned from the beginning of season 2. We couldn’t get it done until season 3 because it had to marry sound, lighting, and a few departments to get it to work. You’ll know it when you see it.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.